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2005/06/23

Choice Quote 2005/06/23.

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Every single politician, pundit, blogger, journalist, radical, reactionary, Christian, Muslim, straight, gay, bi, white, black, brown, purple, or spotted--in short anybody who thinks that stifling dissent and shouting the opposition into silence is what this country is about--needs to have Baldwin's words repeated to them on endless loop until they get it!

2005/06/21

Demonizing 500 vs. Demonizing 130 MILLION!

If ever you needed reminding of how far conservatives are willing to go in their unrelenting quest to destroy the left, Rep. John Hostettler reminded us on the floor of the House of Representatives today.

Like a moth to a flame, Democrats can't help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians. The long war on Christianity in America continues today on the floor of the House of Representatives and continues unabated with aid and comfort to those who would eradicate any vestige of our Christian heritage being supplied by the usual suspects, the Democrats.

This son-of-a-bitch doesn't need to be censured, he needs to have his mouth taped shut because he's obviously too stupid to keep it shut while his brain is still in neutral. Hey Hostettler!? Are you a fucking idiot? Does it occur to you that you just demonized roughly 130,000,000 Americans--of which some...what...110,000,000 happen to BE Christians?

Let this be a lesson my liberal friends. Sen. Dick Durbin (D) calls a spade a spade by quoting from and existing report, "demonizing" (to use the conservative's term)...maybe...500 military interrogators, and is burned right down to the ground. Rep. John Hostettler demonizes more than half the citizens of this nation and is applauded in the conservative blogsphere!

2005/06/20

Today's Rant

Here's today's rant--this one from Lethal Thought (check 'em out on the right), though the link Mendez references goes to a site claiming that the evil liberals are hijacking the 9/11 memorial.

One wonders how much longer this country can survive intact as a viable, sane and powerful nation.

This cranky old liberal couldn't agree more, when the last four Republican administrations have made it their policy to defecate on the Constitution. Nixon (doesn't even bear mentioning); Reagan--subverting the will of congress and violating the separation of powers in Iran-Contra; Bush Sr., establishing a "Council on Competitiveness," whose sole mission was to interpret and selectively choose which laws to enforce (powers not available to the executive, by the way); Bush Jr., god where to begin? How about with sections 213, 215, 411, 412, and 802 of the USA/ Patriot Act which essentially do away with the 4th, 5th, and 14th amendments.

Too bad Mendez powerful statement is really just partisan political rhetoric, when it could have actually meant something.

Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) (a Republican appointed by former President Clinton) has been quoted as saying that his job is to de-politicize funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). When, in fact, he has been the most politicizing influence CPB has ever encountered.

In addition to appointing a "watcher for the watchers" (i.e. an overseer for the NPR's existing ombudsmen), this partisan shill is trying to ram the appointment of Patricia Harrison as president and chief executive of CPB down the throats of the CPB board. Patricia Harrison, currently an official at the State Department, is...get this... a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee!

I say: Let's cut this administration flack off at the knees. It's time to let the conservatives have their way and cut funding for CPB. Sure...it'll hurt in the short term but in the long term Republicans will bawl like babies with an owwee! Consider that the three best funded public broadcasting systems in the nation are KQED (Bay Area), Minnesota Public Broadcasting, and WGBH (Boston). KQED, for example, already gets 60% of its funding from its members, and in the absence of CPB funding, I don't have any doubt that its members will step up to the plate. Then...free from political cronies like Tomlinson, public broadcasting can really serve the public, wherever they may be. Unfortunately for Republicans like Ralph Regula, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that suggests the cuts, the public usually won't be conservatives.

[2005/06/21 12:29p PDT]

Looks like Tomlinson's in trouble. Salon is reporting:

...Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer are unveiling a letter they've written to George W. Bush demanding the dismissal of the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In their letter, which is apparently signed by 15 senators, Feinstein and Schumer accuse Tomlinson of "actively undermining, under-funding and ultimately undoing" the mission of public broadcasting.

Though, I doubt that Bush will pay any more attention to this than he has to objections to John Bolton's nomination. Hey! Maybe John Bolton can become the chief executive of CPB, then he could pontificate about puppets.

After Sen. Durbin's remarks on Gitmo yesterday, this blogger/journalist began to froth at the mouth, calling him unhinged and treacherous in the space of three sentences! She definitely goes into the rotation. Take a look at some of her other columns. This is the kind of pundit whose going all out to get liberals tarred as traitors.

2005/06/15

The autopsy shows that, not only was Terry Schiavo in a persistent vegetative state, but that her brain had shrunk to 50% of normal size, skewering once and for all the notion that recovery was possible.

But the really interesting thing is that casts Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist in an entirely new light. Either he's a valueless politico willing to use his training as an M.D. for purely political ends. Or, he's unethical, having posed as a neurologist on the Senate floor. (Bill Frist is, in fact, a surgeon.) Remember, it was Frist who said that he was speaking, "...more as a doctor than a senator," when he pronounced that there was insufficient information upon which to conclude that Schiavo would never recover.

But either way, Bill Frist is a pig and should have his medical license lifted.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Philip Cooney

Philip A. Cooney, the White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming, will go to work for ExxonMobil in the fall, the oil company said today.

...and now the slick son-of-a-bitch, having served his masters, is rewarded as he returns to the fold. I wonder if the White House will refer to Cooney's return to industry as, "...normal procedure," the way they did when he doctored environmental reports? Oh...hold the presses. Deputy White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was quoted as saying, "Phil Cooney did a great job."

So now we know: Masquerading as an expert on global enrironmental issues, doctoring reports, serving one's industry masters, and **SCREWING** the American public is the Bush administration's definition of a great job!

2005/06/09

Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, is a group of crackpots so consumed by hatred that the mind boggles. These loathsome, un-american, zealots picket the funerals of gay murder victims. They've publicly stated that 9/11 was a punishment from God (along with AIDS, the recent tsunami, and Britney and Kevin: Chaotic).

Tomorrow (06/10), they'll be picketing the Eden Prairie (Minnesota) High School graduation, and on Saturday (06/11) a group of these whackos will be in Tracy, California to picket at the West High School graduation. (Both schools with (G)ay (S)traight (A)lliance chapters.)

2005/06/08

Not like this is any big surprise, but it's now coming out that the Bush administration has been altering government reports on climate change and emissions to make it look like there is no link. In other words, if your best scientists don't "tow the line," on global warming, get an oil industry lackey (Philip Cooney, in this case) to rewrite the reports.

George Orwell's Ministry of Truth comes alive and only 20 years too late.

2005/06/07

I just heard on NPR that Shell (I think) is testing a prototype system for extracting oil from shale and believes that they may be able to get the price per barrel down to $32.

Does anybody else think that pursuing energy strategies based on discovering and extracting more fossil fuels is a brain-dead? I mean...we can already see the effects of global warming all around us.

No doubt the house leadership, not to mention quite a few western state Democrats, are salivating over the huge boon that this would be to their Big Oil patrons. Reminds me of the brouhaha over Canada's tar sands (the worlds largest petroleum reserve). Wouldn't it be better to just invade Canada and take over that precious commodity. That way we don't pollute our own ground water cooking shale or spoil our own territory with Delaware-sized strip mines.

I'll bet the neo-con fucks in Bush's administration have already drawn up the invasion plan. Today Iraq... Tomorrow Canada! Serves the canucks right for opposing us in the first place.

2005/06/02

In mental leap that--even for a pompous, fact-twisting, hate-monger like Rush Limbaugh--is quite a stretch, the man asserted that in bringing Nixon down Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, and Mark Felt were responsible for the loss of the Vietnam War and the genocide in Cambodia. ?!?!?

Un-fucking-believable the bile that issues from this jackass' mouth, the depths to which he will sink in order to bolster his ratings. Hey RUSH!? Did you conveniently forget that Nixon was still in office on the day the last troops left Vietnam? Tell us, oh astute student of history, how (and more importantly, why) Nixon would have prevented the communist takeover, when he himself observed that the cease-fire, "...brings peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia...".

I guess it would have been better to leave a Constitution subverting felon like Nixon in office on the off chance that he would have decided to nuke Cambodia. Huh Rush?

2005/06/01

I'm Taking My Morals and Going Home!

"I'm aware of the Amnesty International report, and it's absurd. It's an absurd allegation."President George W. Bush - 2005/05/31

"Frankly, I was offended by it. For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."Vice President Dick Cheney - 2005/05/31

"...those who make such outlandish charges lose any claim to objectivity or seriousness."Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in reference to Amnesty International - 2005/06/01

Like bullies on a playground, our leaders pillory Amnesty International for calling a spade a spade. Ironically, it was Amnesty that 3 years earlier, before the invasion, was lauded for its thorough documenting of human rights abuses in Saddam Hussien's Iraq. No more.

"...somehow the United States is a violator of human rights"? Is Cheney serious? Even if we couldn't read the military's own reports of abuse; Known about detainees being systematically deprived of the rights they're due under the Constitution; Observed the administration's own internal debate about how to get around the Geneva conventions; We'd still have seen the **FUCKING** pictures!

But the Bush administration, as if in some kind of delusional fog, simply screams repeatedly, We are a moral, virtuous people. How dare you accuse us! The problem, of course, is that when one's leaders hold the US up as an example to be emulated, others nations really do tend to hold us to that higher standard. To bad we don't measure up.